May 15.
We get reports from rebel sources that Hooker has got into Richmond, that Stonewall Jackson was killed and Lee taken prisoner. Were all this true you might expect some of us home within a few months, but it is too good to believe.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 43, October, 1909—June, 1910: February 1910. p. 392
I arrived here this
morning about ten o'clock. My trip was all very pleasant, except when I passed
through Petersburg and Richmond both those places are so crowded. The citizens
of the latter place are greatly alarmed for fear their city will be captured.
We are close to the
enemy now, but there is no certainty of our having a big fight soon. Captain
Hunt's men shot at the Yankees this morning while on picket duty. The report
about our losing ten men is true. The Yankee cavalry came across the
Rappahannock River and captured them.
Our regiment moved
after I arrived to-day and we are now near Summit station in a place where the
chinquapin bushes are very thick.
The regiments are
moved every two or three days to give them practice in moving quickly. All the
tents have been taken away from the men, and that, together with the change of
climate from the coast of South Carolina to this place, has caused much
sickness in our regiment. I will sleep in the medicine tent, a very comfortable
place.
It is bedtime now. I
will try to write you a longer letter next time. The thought of you and our
little George makes me happy, even though I am away off here in Old Virginia.
There was ice last night. Cold all day. Gen. Maury writes that no immediate attack on Mobile need be apprehended now. He goes next to Savannah to look after the defenses of that city.
The Examiner to-day publishes Gen. Jos. E. Johnston's report of his operations in Mississippi last summer. He says the disaster at Vicksburg was owing to Gen. Pemberton's disobedience of orders. He was ordered to concentrate his army and give battle before the place was invested, and under no circumstances to allow himself to be besieged, which must of course result in disaster. He says, also, that he was about to manoeuvre in such manner as would have probably resulted in the saving a large proportion of his men, when, to his astonishment, he learned that Gen. P. had capitulated.
Willoughby Newton reports that the enemy are building a number of light boats, to be worked with muffled oars, at Point Lookout, Md., and suggests that they may be designed to pass the obstructions in the James River, in another attempt to capture Richmond.
It is said Lieut.-Gen. E. Kirby Smith, trans-Mississippi, has been made a full general, and that Major-Gen. Sterling Price relieves Lieut.-Gen. Holmes, who is to report at Richmond. If this be so, it is very good policy.
Gen. Lee is still here, but will leave very soon.
Gen. Bragg has taken measures to insure the transportation of meat and grain from the South. Much food for Lee's army has arrived during the last two days.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 172-3
